The moving last scene in which Peter ultimately feels a connection to Frau Messner despite her being worlds apart from him and, as he puts it, “a member of a nearly extinct species.” She may be the biggest pain in the neck he has ever met, but he is inexplicably drawn to her and will not soon forget their chance encounter.

LB said:

The last scene, where he’s looking at her with a smile on his face, then the smile magically, impeccably fades is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen on film. I’ve watched it over and over, it’s seamless.

From the London Times, Oct. 31,1980:

At one level, the essential one I think, Stephen Poliakoff’s play Caught on a Train (BBC2, 9:30) is a study in domination: ageing Viennese lady, autocratic and irritating, turns young British publishing public relations man into a reluctant lackey during a troubled train journey from Ostende to West Germany. The two roles are splendidly played by Peggy Ashcroft, sporting an impeccable foreign accent, and Michael Kitchen who executes an infinite number of variations on the theme of distaste. Theirs is an unsatisfactory relationship, but such is Mr. Poliakoff’s ingenuity in setting it against a background of lovelessness and violence, that it gradually develops into something which remotely resembles affection.